Read More+Francois-Paul Journe was born on March 22, 1957. He entered the watch making school at 14, accepting his path and profession without ever wavering. Like the lives of many of the earliest Swiss watch making pioneers, Journe's artistic and technological calling came early. In 1976 he graduated from the Ecole d'Horlogerie de Paris with a watchmaker's diploma. His first project was initiating the creation of his own tourbillon pocket watch, the only way he could afford to have one. Journe learned a step-by-step process from books by the great contemporary watchmaker George Daniels.

1979 At 22 years old, Francois-Paul Journe conceived the mechanism of a planetary clock for the Asprey house in London commissioned by the PG Brun workshops in Paris. 1982: After five years, F.P. Journe used what little experience he had in watchmaking to create his own Tourbillon chronometer pocket watch. 1985: F.P. Journe established his own workshop in Saint-Germain-Des-Pres.

1986 Francois-Paul Journe created an automatic chronometer in a pocket watch in 1986, it was his fifth piece.

1987: The sixth watch that F.P. Journe ever made was an astronomical pocket watch with planetarium. It was commissioned by a collector of scientific objects. He also won the Prize of the Foundation of the Vocation Bleustein Blanchet, something he said was an honour and a great encouragement.

1988 F.P. Journe established the “Sympathetic Pendulum” for John Asprey’s house in London. The invention of the first one goes back to Abraham-Louis Breguet, though F.P.Journe’s goal was for a more complex version.

1991: F.P.Journe creates his first wristwatch. The movement and cogs are made entirely from 18 carat gold and the watch is supposedly still in his collection today.

1994 He was awarded the Gaia Prize for Best Watchmaker in 1994 by the Institute of Man and Time.

2000 The presentation of the “Resonance Chronometer” from the Sovereign Collection happened in 2000. F.P. Journe began his research for this watch in 1983. In tribute to the new century, F.P. Journe presented the “Souveraine Sonnerie”.

2001 F.P. Journe created the Octa Caliber in2001, a self-winding caliber with a large power reserve. F.P. Journe collaborated with Harry Winston for the creation of a collection of eighteen pieces signed Opus one.

2002 F.P. Journe acquired the resonance regulator, a regulator realised around 1780 by one of the most brilliant French watchmakers in history, Antide January. F.P. Journe won the special prize of the Jury of the “Grand Prix d’Horlogerie of the city of Geneva” for the model Octa Calendar.